What makes a retail payment solution truly effective?

Understanding today’s retail payment landscape

Retail payment behaviours have shifted sharply in the past five years. Many parts of the world are no longer card-first. Digital wallet usage is accelerating, NMI reports 44% of consumers saying they'll use digital wallets more in 2025. Among Gen Z, that number climbs to 60%. Contactless use is rising too, with cash use predicted to fall by 40% globally by 2025 according to Visa. These data points aren't just trends, they reflect the expectations of your customers for modern payment choices.

Omnichannel experiences as the foundation of effective retail payment

Customers don’t think in terms of channels. They expect to Buy Online, Pick Up In Store (BOPIS), Buy Online, Return In Store (BORIS), or shop in person and get emailed receipts.

To support these omnichannel experiences, your payment system needs to follow the customer, not the other way around. That means linking in-store and online checkouts with a unified customer ID and a single view of transaction history.

Payment method diversity: meeting shoppers where they are

One in three shoppers will abandon a cart if their preferred payment method isn't available. That includes cards, but also alternative payment methods like digital wallets, BNPL, and local bank transfers.

In Asia, wallets dominate. In Europe, bank-based methods like iDEAL and Bancontact are essential. In the US, card and wallet options still lead, but newer preferences like Pay by Bank are gaining ground.

The reality is: what you don’t support, you won’t convert.

Optimising checkout for conversion and speed

Cart abandonment remains stubbornly high, and the checkout is often the cause. Overly complex forms, required logins, or redirects break the flow.

A well-designed payment journey includes:

• Autofill support
• Guest checkout
• One-click repeat payments
• Stored credentials

It also means retry logic when payments fail, or enabling auto debit for repeat customers. Subscription billing, in particular, is seeing wide adoption across sectors from retail to entertainment.

And for in-store? Tap or scan-to-pay must be instant, intuitive, and reliable.

Authorisation uplift and payment processing performance

Every failed transaction is lost revenue. Smart routing, tokenisation, and adaptive retries can meaningfully improve authorisation rates. So can real-time decisioning tools that evaluate risk profiles and dynamically adjust the authentication path.

The goal is to accept more genuine transactions while keeping fraud at bay. This means using techniques like routing transactions through the optimal acquiring bank based on issuer performance data, local card schemes, and currency support. Tokenisation and stored credentials also help by reducing friction for returning customers.

Local acquiring is an especially powerful tool for improving authorisation rates. It reduces latency, aligns with issuer preferences, and avoids unnecessary cross-border fees that often trigger declines.

You can also improve approval rates with 3D Secure optimisation by applying 3DS only when risk is flagged or exemption thresholds are exceeded. Adaptive 3DS combined with machine learning-based risk scoring helps keep legitimate users moving quickly through checkout.

Fraud management and compliance without customer friction

Tokenisation, encryption, and 3D Secure have become table stakes, yet good security doesn’t have to slow down the customer.

Modern systems also use machine learning to detect fraud in real time, triggering authentication only when risk is high. That keeps good customers flowing, while catching bad actors early.

Solutions like Antom Shield combine lists, risk scoring, and rule-based decisions to cut chargebacks without harming UX. While compliance with global standards like PCI DSS, GDPR, and PSD3 is handled in the background. The aim is to reduce scope, not add complexity.

Data-driven insights that personalise and optimise retail payments

Unifying data across online and in-store channels gives you a complete picture. Not just what customers buy, but how they pay, how often they abandon carts, and where payments succeed or fail.

Track metrics like:

• Authorisation rate
• Refund ratio
• Return rate
• Average order value
• Conversion rate by method or channel
• Customer lifetime value

This data helps you ask better questions: Are certain payment methods underperforming in specific regions? Is checkout abandonment higher on mobile? Are refund rates linked to specific SKUs or payment types?

By answering these questions, you can fine-tune everything from checkout design to fraud rules. You can even tailor promotions to specific customer behaviours, or prompt alternative payment options based on past success.

What to look for in a future-proof retail payment solution

Retail payment infrastructure should never hold you back. The right retail payment solution needs to serve the business you run today, while also being equipped to support future expansion, innovation, and change.

Start with architecture. Look for a single, unified payments API that covers all channels, so you’re not maintaining different integrations for online, in-app, and in-store payments. This simplifies your stack and helps you roll out updates or new features faster.

A modular design is also essential. You want the flexibility to add capabilities as your business evolves, e.g. launching subscription models, splitting payments across sellers, or enabling loyalty-linked checkout flows. Modular tools let you do this without re-platforming.

Support for innovation is another signal of future readiness. The market is moving quickly. Your provider should make it easy to experiment with features, such as biometric authentication, embedded finance options, or checkout-free store experiences, without locking you into legacy workflows.

Scale also matters — not just in terms of technical performance, but in knowledge. A provider with local acquiring, currency support, and regulatory fluency can help you avoid costly missteps as you grow internationally.

A future-proof payment solution is one that keeps pace with customers, markets, and business models without forcing your teams to constantly re-engineer around it.

RFP checklist: selecting the right payment solution for retail

Choosing the right payment provider is a high-stakes decision. It shapes your customer experience, influences your approval rates, and affects your bottom line. This checklist can help guide internal reviews or vendor conversations during the Request for Payment (RFP) process:

• Coverage of payment methods — Can they support all locally relevant cards, wallets, bank-based methods, and BNPL schemes in your active and target markets?
• Authorisation performance — Do they have demonstrable improvements in approval rates through local acquiring, smart routing, or retry logic?
• Omnichannel consistency — Is the checkout experience consistent across web, app, and in-store? Do they offer unified reporting and a shared customer ID?
• Platform reliability — What is their guaranteed uptime? Can they handle peak traffic events without latency or failure?
• Transparent pricing and total cost of ownership (TCO) — Are all fees (transaction, settlement, FX, support, and hardware) clearly defined? Do they provide cost simulations or historical benchmarks?
• Operational support — Do they simplify refund and return processing across channels? Is reconciliation automated or manual?
• Support and responsiveness — Do they offer 24/7 customer service in your core time zones? Is technical support localised and available during peak trading windows?
• Product roadmap and adaptability — How often are new methods, APIs, or features released? Are updates backward-compatible and easy to adopt?
• Security and compliance — What certifications do they hold (e.g., PCI DSS, ISO 27001)? How do they manage fraud without compromising UX?
• Integration and developer experience — Do they offer well-documented APIs and SDKs? Is integration time measured in days or months?

Let’s talk

A truly effective retail payment solution supports growth by doing the simple things well. It helps you serve customers without compromise, reduces operational overhead, and removes barriers to expansion. To learn how Antom can help modernise your payment infrastructure and drive measurable impact, get in touch with our team.